Friday, October 18, 2013

Ten Killed For One

The Palmyra
Massacre took place in Missouri on October 18th 1862, when a Union
Colonel had ten Confederate prisoners of war shot in retaliation for the
killing of Union sympathizer.

Sixty year
old Andrew Alsman was a carpenter and more importantly a Union sympathizer
living in a Confederate neighborhood. It
was known that he lead Union troops looking for Confederates in the area. Confederate Colonel Joseph C Porter had taken
Alsman prisoner when he raided through Palmyra on September 12th 1862. When forced north, Porter picked a detail of
men to take Alsman out of the city limits to the nearest Union line. Alsman was never seen again, and it was
believed that he was killed. Union
Colonel John McNeil had his Provost Marshal, William R Strachan publish a
notice in the local newspaper on October 8th 1862; the “Palmyra
Courier”, stating that if Alsman wasn’t returned in ten day, ten of Porter’s
men being held in Palmyra and Hannibal, Missouri would be executed.

Ten
prisoners were chosen on the evening of October 17th 1862. They were Willis Baker [who was in jail
because his sons were serving with Porter], Morgan Bixler, Herbert Hudson,
Thomas Humston [who was only 19], Eleazer Lake, Francis M Lear, John Y
McPheeter, Captain Thomas A Sidnor [a recruiting agent working for Porter], Hiram
T Smith, and John M Wade. On the morning
of October 18th 1862, thirty soldiers from the 2nd Missouri
State Militia formed a firing squad on the old fairgrounds just east of Palmyra. The ten Confederates were moved on wagons
from the Marion County Jail, seated on their coffins to the fairgrounds. The men unloaded their own coffins and stood
without blindfolds. There were around
100 people present to watch, and a Baptist minister to offer a final prayer. The initial shots; fired just after noon,
only killed three of the ten men, with one not being hit at all, a second round
finished them off. The executed men were
placed in their coffins and taken back to the town square so relatives could
claim the bodies.

There was a
monument erected in memory of the men on February 25th 1907 by the
Palmyra Confederate Monument Association.
The monument is located on the grounds of the Palmyra Courthouse.